At the 2025 New York City Ballet Fall Fashion Gala, Iris van Herpen and Jamar Roberts presented Foreseeable Future — a mesmerizing blend of movement, art, and technology.
A Collaboration Born of Vision
When Marc Happel, the ballet’s costume director, saw van Herpen’s intricate honeycomb fabric, he was stunned. “Do you mean every one of these squares has a stitch?” he asked. “We did it for Beyoncé,” van Herpen replied. “Then it’s good enough for us,” Happel said with a smile.
The Dutch designer, celebrated for her futuristic sculptural couture, worked from her Amsterdam studio to craft pieces for Roberts’s new ballet. The performance premiered on October 9, continuing the gala tradition that unites choreographers and fashion designers — an idea introduced by Sarah Jessica Parker in 2012.
The Concept: Dance Meets Design
For Jamar Roberts, a former Alvin Ailey dancer and visual artist, costume design is inseparable from choreography. “Dance just happens to be my medium,” he said. Having studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology, Roberts admired van Herpen’s ability to blend nature and technology. “Her designs look alive — like rare species,” he said.
Crafting the Costumes
Van Herpen divided her work into two themes: Calm and Chaos. For Calm, she created weightless wings of Japanese organza printed in gradient tones from nude to red. For Chaos, she imagined futuristic armor — “an intelligent second skin for the future.”
Each garment was laser-cut and hand-stitched, combining delicate craftsmanship with digital precision. “I wanted to show the evolution of the body through technology,” van Herpen explained.
Dancing in Couture
Principal dancer Sara Mearns admitted she was skeptical about wearing the massive wings. “Then they made a mock-up — and I could hardly feel them. They moved with me.”
For the Chaos dancers, reflective silver mylar and heat-set rubber created a metallic illusion that fragmented light. The costumes blurred the line between human and machine.
From Studio to Stage
When Roberts began rehearsals, he choreographed around the costumes. “They inspired the movement,” he said. “When you have wings, you want to make them fly.”
At the premiere, winged dancers appeared as living sculptures — their organza shifting color in motion. The silver figures followed, angular and sharp, moving to Venezuelan artist Arca’s throbbing score.
In the finale, Sara Mearns and Taylor Stanley collapsed as their red wings folded into glowing shells — a poetic image of transformation.
A Vision Realized
After the performance, van Herpen said, “They came alive onstage exactly as I had imagined — human, technological, and organic at once.”
Foreseeable Future reaffirmed that when fashion and movement merge, they create a new language of beauty.
